Maybe I’m not a true fan; maybe I have an inferiority complex; maybe I just don’t like Coach K.

            Whatever the explanation is, I can’t stand it when people maintain that I should root for Duke (or North Carolina, or any other ACC team) when they play an out of conference game, simply because they are in the ACC. In Duke’s matchup with Memphis, for example, people told me that I should root for Duke because we need “ACC solidarity” or we need to make sure that “the ACC is the best conference.”

            Personally, I don’t care. I love Wake Forest basketball, and I love it more than I love our conference. Now, given that we are in the ACC, which is typically a very strong conference, I may lack the urgency of fans from the Pac-10, MAC or Atlantic 10, whose teams are constantly fighting for respect for their conferences.

            After all, shouldn’t I be concerned with keeping our reputation as one of the nation’s top basketball conferences? Isn’t the Big East going to step into our stead and replace us? What about the Big Ten, which basketball “purists” throughout the Heartland will claim, with a straight face, is the best conference in the nation?

            For me, though, it’s all about Wake Forest. Our biggest rivals are Duke and North Carolina (despite ESPN’s efforts to tell us that NC State and Georgia Tech fill those roles), and there are few things I enjoy less than seeing either of those teams win. Why should I do something I hate to do (root for them), just because my team happens to play in the same conference as our counterparts to the east?

            Whether Duke had beaten Memphis or not (nope), and whether or not North Carolina had choked against Santa Clara again (they didn’t), the Demon Deacons aren’t really affected. Those teams will be just as difficult to beat whether they come to Winston-Salem with zero losses or ten; either way, we will have to play a fantastic game each time to emerge victorious.

            And if, come Selection Sunday, we have played well enough to make the field of 65, we will make it. If we haven’t played well enough, we won’t. It’s pretty simple, really. Maybe being in the ACC will help us, or maybe it will hurt us, but either way, in the end it comes down to our team and how we perform. If Wake Forest leaves it up to the Selection Committee, then we probably don't deserve to make the tournament anyways, conference be darned.

           Call me naïve or stupid, but I’d rather not make the tournament and be successful in the NIT than make it undeservedly and flame out in the first round in an 8-9 game.

            Or maybe I just dislike Coach K that much…